2025 Year in Review: Entertainment
(CNN, KYMA) - 2025 brought entertainment news from the big and small screens to the concert stage, and from the corporate boardroom to stars in the courtroom.
The year began with a coronation and a controversy.
Demi Moore drew a standing ovation at the Golden Globes, as "The Substance" star won her first-ever major acting award.
"Emilia Perez" won four Golden Globes and would go on to win two Oscars, including Best Supporting Actress for Zoe Saldana, but in between, star Karla SofÃa Gascón, the first openly transgender actress nominated for an Oscar in an acting category, drew controversy for past social media posts criticizing Muslim culture and George Floyd.
Oscar night belonged to "Anora," which took home five trophies, including Best Picture. The film's writer and director Sean Baker became just the second person to win four Oscars in one night, with the first being Walt Disney.
Taylor Swift's massively successful "Eras Tour" wrapped up at the end of 2024, but she had plenty more for her fans in 2025. She dropped "The Life of a Showgirl," written while on the tour, and Travis Kelce dropped to one knee as her football player boyfriend proposed.
The now-engaged performer ended the year setting Billboard records with "Showgirl," and releasing a concert film and a docuseries about "The Eras Tour."
Beyonce had a memorable year as well as Billboard says her "Cowboy Carter" Tour was the shortest tour ever to gross more than $400 million, and the highest-grossing country music concert tour ever.
She also became the first Black woman to win the Grammy for Best Country Album, and she finally won the Album of the Year Grammy.
The biggest movie of 2025 didn't come from Hollywood as the animated adventure "Ne Zha 2" made more than $1.9 billion, nearly all of that in china.
In Hollywood, mega-buck mergers and acquisitions further changed the showbiz landscape as Skydance Media took over Paramount Global in an $8 billion deal and Amazon MGM Studios took creative control of the "James Bond" franchise.
In addition, after two years, Disney completed a $9 billion deal to buy out NBCUniversal's stake in Hulu, and in December, Netflix announced a deal to acquire Warner Bros, including HBO and HBO Max, followed by a hostile bid by Paramount Skydance for all of Warner Bros. Discovery.
"Saturday Night Live" (SNL) marked half-a-century of late-night laughs, with 16-time "SNL" host Steve Martin delivering the monologue.
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban split after just under 20 years of marriage. The Oscar-winning actress filed for divorce from the Grammy-winning country singer in September. They married in 2006 and have two teenage daughters.
2024's "It Ends With Us" led to dueling lawsuits in 2025. In January, Justin Baldoni, the film's director and co-star, sued star Blake Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds after Lively filed a civil rights complaint, accusing Baldoni of sexually harassing her during filming, and then retaliating against her when she spoke up.
Baldoni denied the accusations, and claimed the couple had hijacked the film and tried to "destroy" him and his career.
In June, a judge dismissed Baldoni's $400 million lawsuit, and Lively's lawsuit is scheduled for trial in May 2026.
Hollywood was shocked, as well as saddened, by several celebrity deaths this year.
Writer, director, actor, and activist Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were killed at their Los Angeles home. Police arrested their son Nick Reiner. Rob Reiner was 78.
Actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner drowned while swimming in Costa Rica. He was 54.
Actress Michelle Trachtenberg died at age 39, reportedly of complications from diabetes mellitus, and Oscar-winner Gene Hackman and his wife were found dead in their New Mexico home. He was 95.
Others we lost in 2025 included singers Ozzy Osbourne and Brian Wilson, actresses Diane Keaton, Loni Anderson, June Lockhart, and Diane Ladd, actors Val Kilmer and George Wendt, director David Lynch, and actor, Oscar-winning director, and environmentalist Robert Redford.
